The Fourth of July is a time to stop and remember that our Founding Fathers were Christian; they came to this country for the very purpose of worshiping a Christian God and building a nation to honor Jesus Christ. They did not want a state-run religion, but they did not want to abandon Christianity altogether. The pilgrims left England where all citizens were bound by a state-run religion. They broke from the Church of England to espouse Christian principles found in the Bible. The entire Protestant movement was initiated by men like Martin Luther and John Calvin who espoused the idea that the layman should be ruled by the Bible while still subject to the king. This attitude is clear in the following passage from the Mayflower Compact:
In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together …
The Founding Fathers, grandchildren of the pilgrims who fought for our independence and drafted our Constitution, hadn’t changed their views but were also devout Christians.
John Adams, one of America’s Founding Fathers and its second president, said, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion …. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." He also said:
Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon the earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?
In his farewell address, George Washington expressed the same sentiments as Adams. These men recognized the importance of the Bible and its teachings in bringing up moral people and governing them. Not as power in themselves as leaders but as in power in the people. In our modern society with all its social ills and corruption, it is obvious the Founding Fathers knew what they were talking about. Washington said:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are the indispensable supports.… let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.… reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.
From the first Continental Congress to our last President’s inauguration, a minister has given a prayer to invoke the blessings of a Christian God. Here is a prayer that was said in the first Congress on Sept. 7, 1774, given by Jacob Duche. Notice the prayer addresses the Lord, and it closes in Jesus’ name:
O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms.… All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior. Amen.
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, when starting a brand-new government, set it up the way they wanted. These men were rebels in the eyes of England. They were not conformists. They had just won their independence from an unpopular government, a Christian one at that. They could have set up any kind of government they wanted; furthermore, they could have forced the people to obey. That is not what they wanted. They wanted freedom for every person to worship the way they chose, and they chose to be Christian. They certainly didn’t want a state-run religion. They wanted freedom of religion.
These men were Bible scholars, not fair-weather Christians. They lived what they taught. Jefferson went so far as to condense the Bible into a small book of Christian principles. He took out the histories and the stories, keeping just the doctrines and Christian principles. In a letter to Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his “wee little book” of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”
He called the book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Friends dubbed it The Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation’s third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.
Jefferson did not have a computer with the cut and paste option. He had to do all his writing by hand. It took valuable time and energy. Someone less committed to Christianity would have given up the project before it began.
The Pilgrims passed Christian teachings on to their children. They used the Bible to teach their children how to read and write. They heard teachings from the pulpit and talked about them around the dinner table and the fireplace at night. They spent their Sabbath day in prayer and meditation. The children of the Pilgrims passed these teachings on to their children, and their children passed it on.
Somewhere with all the fanfare of the Fourth of July, fireworks and the celebrations, the hedonistic people who took prayer and Bible study out of the schools and the media who promoted godless morals, people began to abandon Christian principles, and society commenced to break down. It was a gradual process with one generation forgetting, then another, until a nation wakes up to wonder if we are a Christian nation at all and if the Founding Fathers were any less Christian.
We have corruption on every front. In many cases, the family is a free-for-all, and the school is a ship without a navigator, ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. No wonder scholars want to rewrite history. Society has begun to judge life from its own warped perspective instead of God’s eternal truth. Society is blinded by its own decadent vision. It is hard to hold the mirror up to a tattered conscience without wanting to shrink the picture to fit selfish motives. There is little backbone to follow Christian principles. It is easier to say that all men are alike and never face the moral midget in the mirror.
Our Founding Fathers were Christian. They were men of sound integrity who, by the grace of God, created a constitution that made America the greatest nation in the world. Christian principles brought independence into existence, and the abandonment of Christian values will be its downfall.
The question facing America today is not whether our Founding Fathers were Christian. It is rather, am I Christian? Am I looking up from the smartphone and the media to look at the moral compass of America? Where is my America heading? Am I making a difference in the tomorrows of my children? Will generations from now ask, was the America of the 21st century Christian? Did the citizens carry the baton of freedom for me, or did I let it fall into the dust and ashes of my grave? President Reagan once said:
Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.
Christianity and freedom are sisters that walk hand in hand. We must keep them safe forever.
